1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for user access and retrieval of locations on world wide web networked computer systems, and more specifically for automatically returning to a previous screen position in the Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
2. Description of Related Art
Access and retrieval of information on the Internet is performed using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is essentially a scripting language that marks up a page with formatting commands. These commands are then interpreted by a worldwide web networked computer system (web) browser and sent to a computer screen for viewing. Typically, on web pages the user can point to the words “continued on page 99” and expect page 99 to automatically appear on the viewing screen. This is possible because the page currently being viewed, and the “continued” page are linked together.
Universal resource locators are often used to direct the user through various pages at a site on the world wide web. There are two ways of linking pages: relative linking and absolute linking. Using an entire URL is absolute linking. Relative linking requires only a portion of the URL that is not already referenced by a previous URL in a URL hierarchy, to be indicated in an HTML source file. The relative link is then combined by a web browser with the previous link to build the complete URL.
Absolute linking requires the entire URL. This is an exact pointer to the location, directory, and HTML source file where the information resides that the user ultimately wants to link.
However, when a user accesses a URL then leaves the URL, there is currently no way to return to the exact position within the HTML file in the URL when the user returns to the URL at another time. When a user accesses and views a URL that presents a multi-screen web page, scrolls using a combination of the page key and slide bar, leaves the URL and later returns to the URL, the web browser does not position the viewer at the exit point in the URL. The user cannot return to the exact point on the web page that was last visited. The first issue is keeping track of the last visited position in the web page and computing the section of the web page to present on a screen, and the second issue is that the web page may have changed since last visited. It then becomes a problem to return to the last screen previously displayed when the last screen may have changed.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,717,860, issued to Graber, et al., on 10 Feb. 1998, entitled, “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR TRACKING THE NAVIGATION PATH OF A USER ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB,” the last previous world wide web site visited by the user is determined. A database is provided for storing a plurality of user records. Each of the user records includes a user identification field for storing information uniquely associating each of the user records with a user, and a co-marketer identification field for storing identity information representing the identity of an entity that directed the user to the computer service.
Bearing in mind the problems and deficiencies of the prior art, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a uniform system for keeping track of the last visited position in the web page and computing the section of the web page to present on a screen.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a uniform system for returning to the last screen previously displayed when the last screen may have changed.
It is yet another object of the present invention to identify the location of the last line that was displayed on a screen in a multi-screen web page and be able to return to the exact position upon re-entry to the web page.
It is another object of the present invention to identify when a web page has been visited.
Still other advantages of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part be apparent from the specification.